Rating: **
Nothing says finality like 3-D. That seems to be the theory of the day with the previous release of THE FINAL DESTINATION in 3-D (which, as it turns out, is not The FINAL DESTINATION after all), and the new release of what is supposed to be the final SAW. The finale can’t come soon enough, in my opinion. There are only so many times that a group of narcissistic, self-involved people can be lured into overly elaborate and grisly death traps where they are literally taken apart at the seams featuring buckets and buckets of fake blood and chum. Unless it’s in 3-D, of course.
But really, 3-D was about all the producers of SAW could do to inject some new life into this franchise, which despite being still the slimly budgeted gore fest it’s always been, has come to feel bloated and self-involved. Every new film adds a layer of mythology that both complicates the original simplicity of the core story, and requires even greater feats of mental dexterity from the viewer to keep track of who’s a threat to who and is trying to get revenge on who else, all while a character that’s been dead for four films now somehow pulls the puppet strings from beyond the grave.
Tobin Bell still has some face time in this one as the titular philosophical serial killer Jigsaw, but his on-screen presence is mitigated. Even the villains(?), or is that antagonists, from the past few movies, Betsy Russell as Jigsaw’s ex-wife Jill and Costas Mandylor as his would-be protégé Hoffman, seem to spend a lot of time on the bench. The real story in this SAW is the return of Cary Elwes as Dr. Gordon, the man who gets away at the end of SAW I after sawing off is own foot. A prologue shows Dr. Gordon crawling away immediately after and cauterizing his own stump to stop the blood loss. I’m sure fans of the series enjoyed this throwback, but to me it’s another reminder of what this series has lost through all its iterations.
The subject this time is Bobby Dagen played by Sean Patrick Flanery. His sin is that he’s a survivor of one of Jigsaw’s death traps and has made a mint as a self-help guru in the aftermath. Of course, he’s surrounded by a group of spineless yes men (and women) and has a loving wife that admires him for his courage in the face of having had hooks pierced in his chest and forced to hoist himself on a rig in order to escape. If it takes you longer than two minutes to figure that Bobby is talking out both sides of his mouth, you might not be smarter than a fifth grader. Time to play a game for real, Bobby? You betcha!
One thing I’ll say about the 3-D is that it makes the death scenes much more squeamish. Seeing the blood and guts fly everywhere, even right at you, is enough to turn your stomach. At that, I think SAW reaches you on a visceral level, but outside that immediate yank on your gag reflex your left with a confusing mythology and a bunch of characters you don’t give a damn about. The kick-off game features a two men and a woman. The men, who were both being led on by the woman, are forced to choose who will get the business end of buzz saw, and by default win the girl. In the brief time we know them these characters are so ugly, killing all three would be a mercy to the human race.
At least if this is the end, the SAW movies go out on a technical high note, which should leave the fans of the series with a satisfied blood lust and a stunted appetite for bloody disgusting deaths. If not, their thirst will never be quenched and it’s pointless to continue anyway. It’s hard to believe that this is the series that started out so audaciously and featured first rate actors like Bell, Elwes, Danny Glover, Ken Leung and Michael Emerson. But I guess on the seventh film of a horror franchise, playing the G-list players is inevitable, even if they don’t get to work with A-list material.
